Athiesm is not a Religion, and "Believing" in Evolution is not Faith.

[MasterofPun]

I will reply to elementaldearwatson first.

"Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." I think that pretty much sums up your logical flaw in your final argument.

I agree that the argument is silly. Can you give me an idea where life came from other than random chance or the supernatural? If you could, then your accusation of straw man would have something to compare to. I am merely beating the straw out of an argument that I gladly see that neither you nor I believe. What do you believe then?

"0 scientists claim that".
Please read. I'm guessing you did 0 research to prove that 0 scientists claim that. Apparently it is a popular claim, as the #1 google result features this is as a hypothesis.
http://www.livescience.com/1804-greatest-mysteries-life-arise-earth.html

You are desperately misunderstanding my statement. Life comes from life. Chicken or the egg? Answer = you cannot have a chicken without an egg or an egg without a chicken (it's not a perfect example). You need a jumpstart to life that cannot be explained by science. This is the simple theory I am referring to as well. I have done 0 research to find a name for this, but if you would like to, I will not stop you. 

"Humans not having directly observed something doesn't mean that that thing didn't happen."
That's a fabulous statement. Now just replace the words "something" with God and replace "that thing didn't happen" with 'that He doesn't exist'.

Less than no evidence? Not only is this hyperbole (which I probably shouldn't have used), but it is nonsense when applied to God. There is no lack of evidence that God exists. What type of evidence would you like? The fact that life exists? Supernatural (impossible to be explained by modern science) events recorded? A 66-Book document describing exactly Who He is and that He Is? Perhaps prophecies being fulfilled time after time? The dead coming back to life? Take your pick: all these things happened. Would you like more specifics? The Book of Mark is a great starting place. Maybe I misunderstand you.

Now OldTrees - I'm only starting biology classes and I am totally lost at what you are saying. Perhaps you could attempt to clarify using simpler words? I can't feel that those words (while I recognize many of them) really are effective communication tools.

[OldTrees]

"0 scientists claim that".
Please read. I'm guessing you did 0 research to prove that 0 scientists claim that. Apparently it is a popular claim, as the #1 google result features this is as a hypothesis.
http://www.livescience.com/1804-greatest-mysteries-life-arise-earth.html

I notice that the linked article contradicts your presentation of it.

Most scientists agree that life went through a period when RNA was the head-honcho molecule, guiding life through its nascent stages.

nascent stages (or stages of beginning to exist or develop) means that there were multiple stages rather than 1 step from empty space -> fully formed cell.

Now OldTrees - I'm only starting biology classes and I am totally lost at what you are saying. Perhaps you could attempt to clarify using simpler words? I can't feel that those words (while I recognize many of them) really are effective communication tools.

Oh. Pre highschool biology, pre college biology for non biology majors, or pre college biology for biology majors? Please also mention where you are in chemistry since the majority of mechanics relevant to abiogenesis would be taught in chemistry.

Attempt 2:

Step 1:
Molecules can react with other molecules or even with themselves. All reactions can happen in either direction but usually have a strong tendency towards one way or the other. In a given volume of pure water(nothing but water here) you will have some HO^- and H3O⁺ molecules from the 2 H20 <<=> H3O⁺ + HO^- reactions.

Molecules may be polar, non polar, or even have an area that is polar and an area that is non polar. Polar molecules have positive and negative sides that are attracted to other polar molecules. Non polar molecules are not repelled by polar molecules but the attraction between polar molecules can push non polar molecules out of the way.

Imagine we have a soup of mostly polar molecules (say H2O), and some molecules with a polar head and a non polar tail(say phospholipids). The non polar tail of the phospholipids would keep getting pushed out of the way as H2O was attached to other H2O or to the polar head of the phospholipids. At the same time the polar heads of the phospholipids would be attached to each other and to the H2O molecules.

Now molecules move about "randomly" however different arrangements are more or less stable. Given time a system tends to move toward the more stable arrangements (this is a simplified explanation of Entropy). In the case of phospholipids(or any molecule with a polar head and a non polar tail) in an aqueous solution(in water) we know and have verified that, given time, it will arrange itself into a bilayer (2 planes of phospholipids with the non polar sides of the planes touching) and then into spherical bilayers(cell membranes are spherical bilayers of phospholipids).

Step 2:
A phospholipids bilayer is a semipermeable membrane. This means it lets some stuff pass through it and stops other stuff. Since you are just starting biology I think I will cover this with an analogy. I, being foolish, decide to declare a party at my house from now until the end of time. My door will only allow individual people to pass through (it is not wide enough for groups to walk through).

Social interactions in this analogy are a bit simplified:
2 people can form a group, a person can join a group, a person can leave a group, 2 groups can merge, or a group can split into 2.

At first nothing special happens. People wander into and out of my house. However some groups start to form. Groups cannot leave the house so they stay in the house. Overtime the number and size of the groups in my house increase despite there still being in/out traffic at my door.

[MasterofPun]

  I see that you didn't read the full article. Please go back and read it all the way through before proclaiming what it says.

I am educated roughly at the standard American highschooler level, I would estimate, if that would help. These things can't be exactly determined.

Your analogy is good and my chemistry teacher would enjoy i, I wager.

1. Where did the H20 come from?
2. Why are there laws of nature?
3. Why do the laws of nature not conflict (or do they)?
4. This explanation does not yet explain life, seeing as yes you have now created a semi-permeable membrane, but how to you get all the organelles and DNA (not just RNA, unless you can do this with RNA and I don't know it)?

[OldTrees]

I see that you didn't read the full article. Please go back and read it all the way through before proclaiming what it says.

I already did read the full article and nothing changed when I went back to reread it. It is pretty clear that it is in line with the examples biology majors learn about rather than being a "from empty space to a fully formed cell in one step".

I am educated roughly at the standard American highschooler level, I would estimate, if that would help. These things can't be exactly determined.

Your analogy is good and my chemistry teacher would enjoy i, I wager.

1. Where did the H20 come from?
2. Why are there laws of nature?
3. Why do the laws of nature not conflict (or do they)?
4. This explanation does not yet explain life, seeing as yes you have now created a semi-permeable membrane, but how to you get all the organelles and DNA (not just RNA, unless you can do this with RNA and I don't know it)?

If you are only at highschool in chemistry then I recommend remembering what I say until you get a biology class that presumed you already had college Chem I or even Chem II. There is lots of background that you do not have yet. Until you have that background some of what I say will not be self-evident (and thus it is less likely to convince you at this time, assuming you are rational).

1) H2O comes from 2 H atoms bonding to an O atom. If you are wondering why there was water on an early Earth, that is a question for other fields of science.
2) Why is something as it is rather than as something else? The way reality is determines what the laws of nature are because the laws are merely a description of the way reality is.
3) The laws of nature do not conflict with themselves because reality, being one thing, can only be one way. If reality were different then so too would the laws of nature be different.
4a) RNA can be self replicating and functional. Once generic RNA chains are possible within a cell then specific RNA chains are also possible.
4b) However moving from the RNA based life to a Protein & DNA based life would be more steps. I, a mere Junior in Biology, am not qualified to speak to that end. However we do know that the Ribosome proteins were early enough in the history of Terran life that they are universal (although early lifeforms had lots of horitzontal gene transfer so it gets difficult to predict how early).
4c) Moving from Protein & DNA based life to the modern animal cell contains hundreds of steps, one of which is the engulfing of the mitochondria(it used to be a standalone species). Although several organelles are common enough across most of life to indicate an early place in history.

[MasterofPun]

I am sorry that you missed the point: the article points out how the current biology theory is that life arises from simple structures combining and then forming more complex structures which randomly combined into more complex organelles into cells. But at one point in there, life had to spring from the organelles. Even if we could assemble all of a cell's organelles within a membrane, the cell would need so many more components before it would actually even be a living cell! But away from that thought, at one point life had to suddenly come from non-living material. There's no evidence that phenomenon has ever occurred or ever will occur.

Sir, I have been incredibly rational thus far. Do not fret - my patience endures by the grace of God.

Nice dodge of my question. Where did mass come from? Energy? Space? Time? What is the origin of these things? How did they come to be?
2. Valid, but how do you define reality? (This is getting off topic btw)
So correct me if I'm wrong with 4c, you're saying that mitochondria used to be its own species? A mitochondria cannot survive on its own. It needs organization and a membrane, even I know that. Do I misunderstand you?
Also, "Common enough"? What does that mean? I sincerely doubt that organelles that are so epicly precise and narrow (as you know as a biology major) could randomly form from tiny pieces. How do you get the technology that cells wield by random chance when we cannot construct such technology's equal with human intelligence? Even with human intelligence, we cannot even brush the surface of some cell's efficiency. And that happened by accident?
Additionally, how did life apparently exist without any DNA? Do we have any proof that life exists without DNA or its formative parts?

[Aves]

I am sorry that you missed the point: the article points out how the current biology theory is that life arises from simple structures combining and then forming more complex structures which randomly combined into more complex organelles into cells. But at one point in there, life had to spring from the organelles.This is not quite accurate. The direction from simpler processes into more complex ones, yes. However, there is a leap from that to the idea of organelles turning into cells. The fact that organelles are simpler than cells does not mean organelles came together to form cells. One plausible theory might be: All cells were once prokaryotic. Some prokaryotic cells manage to form symbiotic relationships, specializing into certain tasks. As time passes, some of the specialized cells begin to rely on their partners and lose some functionality-- the functionality is now redundant, for example the need for a cell wall. These are now organelles.Even if we could assemble all of a cell's organelles within a membrane, the cell would need so many more components before it would actually even be a living cell! But away from that thought, at one point life had to suddenly come from non-living material. There's no evidence that phenomenon has ever occurred or ever will occur. We have no direct evidence that stars are massive spheres of plasma made largely of Hyrogen and Helium that undergo nuclear fusion, either. This is not something that we can physically confirm by ourselves. We can say that stars emit all of the radiation we would expect of such a construct, but we cannot go to the sun and prove this for ourselves. We go with the idea that the sun is a large ball of hydrogen undergoing nuclear fusion rather than, say, Helios driving his chariot in the heavens, because the former is related to other things that we can confirm while the latter is not.
Similarly, we cannot directly observe the formation of life on the planet. What we can do is take our current theories that we CAN observe and extrapolate from them, ceteris paribus (holding all other things equal). Scientific theory is not concerned with truth-- only with providing useful approximations in order to make accurate predictions of natural phenomena.


Sir, I have been incredibly rational thus far. Do not fret - my patience endures by the grace of God.

Nice dodge of my question. Where did mass come from? Energy? Space? Time? What is the origin of these things? How did they come to be? Well, the most common scientific theory for this is the Big Bang Theory. This of course leads to the question, where did the Big Bang come from? And that is not something that modern science can answer. You might say that God did it. Here, I will invoke Pascal's wager. Why God, and not, for example, Cthulhu, or any of an infinitely large number of possible omnipotent deities? The answer to "what caused the Big Bang" is essentially unknowable. Invoking a deity for it is acceptable, but does not add anything substantial. And if you reject the Big Bang theory, that is okay too, but then you have to give an explanation for why you reject the theories it is extrapolated from and provide an alternate explanation for the phenomena it explains.
2. Valid, but how do you define reality? (This is getting off topic btw)
So correct me if I'm wrong with 4c, you're saying that mitochondria used to be its own species? A mitochondria cannot survive on its own. It needs organization and a membrane, even I know that. Do I misunderstand you? This is a common misconception about evolution. Humans are not apes. Humans are not descended from apes. Apes are not descended from humans. Humans and apes share a common ancestor species, which diverged into non-compatible and separate species through evolution. For this specific case, the idea is that mitochondria and eukaryotic cells are not descended from one another, but they may share a common ancestor species. In other words, mitochondria may have evolved from a type of cell. How? I explain one possible theory above, I think.
Also, "Common enough"? What does that mean? I sincerely doubt that organelles that are so epicly precise and narrow (as you know as a biology major) could randomly form from tiny pieces. How do you get the technology that cells wield by random chance when we cannot construct such technology's equal with human intelligence? Even with human intelligence, we cannot even brush the surface of some cell's efficiency. And that happened by accident?The idea is that some organelles appear to be very common in all cells. Therefore, those particular organelles must have diverged into organelles early if we go by the theory using evolution.
Additionally, how did life apparently exist without any DNA? Do we have any proof that life exists without DNA or its formative parts?In the most commonly accepted definition in biology, the definition of life requires cells, rather than say, self-replicating molecules. This excludes things such as viruses, which are RNA-based. The issue here is merely one of definition. For an alternative definition of life, consider Conway's game or the idea that ideas are alive; in other words, life as self-sustaining processes.

[ElementalDearWatson]

I will reply to elementaldearwatson first.

"Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." I think that pretty much sums up your logical flaw in your final argument.

Well, firstly, it was your argument., not mine.  I just applied the same argument that you applied to abiogenesis to God.

Secondly, absence of evidence is evidence of absence, if you would expect to find evidence of existence.  To use a very basic example, if I were testing the hypothesis "this box contains chocolates", then opening the box and finding an absence of chocolates would be evidence that the hypothesis were false.

If you're positing the idea of a God who has influence over the world, then you would expect there to be evidence of that influence.  If God has no influence over the world, then that's functionally no different than God not existing.

Can you give me an idea where life came from other than random chance or the supernatural?

From the laws of physics and chemistry.

"0 scientists claim that".
Please read. I'm guessing you did 0 research to prove that 0 scientists claim that. Apparently it is a popular claim, as the #1 google result features this is as a hypothesis.
http://www.livescience.com/1804-greatest-mysteries-life-arise-earth.html

That says the opposite of what your claim was.  Your claim was that science postulates that "A cell [...] simply jump into existence".  In support of that you post a link to an article which talks about cells gradually being built up from small molecules and chemicals gradually becoming larger and more complex ones.  That's the literal opposite of simply jumping into existence.

Life comes from life.

Part of the problem with a statement like this is that it assumes that "life" is a simple category with hard, delineated edges.  It's not.  Something like a virus, for example, doesn't really fit into the category of alive or the category of not-alive. 

Tell me, is a chemical which replicates itself alive?

Chicken or the egg? Answer = you cannot have a chicken without an egg or an egg without a chicken (it's not a perfect example).

The answer to which came first is the egg.  Dinosaurs were around a long time before chickens, and chickens evolved from dinosaurs.  In fact, under modern cladistics, chickens are dinosaurs.

And even then you're making the same mistake as above, in assuming that there's a hard, delineated line between "chicken" and "not-chicken".  But evolution doesn't work like that.  Evolution happens gradually.  If you could track backwards in time you'd be able to point at an ancestor of the chicken and say "that is not a chicken", but there would never be a point at which you could point at an individual and say "this is the first ever chicken".  It's fuzzy.

Let me give you an example to illustrate what I mean.  Let's say that there's a line-up of people.  They range in height from 4' to 7', with the shortest at one end and the tallest at the other. Each person is exactly 1mm taller than the person to their left.  Now, you could point to someone at one end and say "s/he is tall" or "s/he is short".  And you could point to someone in the middle and you could say "s/he is neither tall nor short".  What you couldn't do is go to a couple of people standing next to each other and say that one of them was tall/short and the other was not.  What you'd have is a fuzzy area somewhere where the people are starting to get tall/short.

Same with the chicken.  You'll have creatures you can look at and say "they are chickens", and you'll have creatures who are their ancestors you can look at and say "they are not chickens", but there'll be a huge fuzzy area in between.

So, the answer to the question "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" is the egg.  And the word "chicken" isn't as useful as you think it is when asking the question.

You need a jumpstart to life that cannot be explained by science.

You need a "jumpstart" to life that cannot fully be explained by science yet. 

You're offering up a God of the Gaps.  The problem with the God of the Gaps is that the more those gaps are filled in by scientific discovery, the smaller and less significant that God gets.

I have done 0 research to find a name for this, but if you would like to, I will not stop you. 

It's your assertion, the burden of proof is yours.  I'm confident that what you are claiming is not a scientific theory at all, so I have no need to look.

"Humans not having directly observed something doesn't mean that that thing didn't happen."
That's a fabulous statement. Now just replace the words "something" with God and replace "that thing didn't happen" with 'that He doesn't exist'.

So you're going to ignore how that actually related to what you were saying?  I'm glad you agree with the statement, though, because that statement completely demolishes the argument you made.

What type of evidence would you like?

Empirical.

The fact that life exists?

The fact that life exists is evidence life exists.  No more and no less.

Supernatural (impossible to be explained by modern science) events recorded?

There is no empirical evidence of this.

A 66-Book document describing exactly Who He is and that He Is?

I have 53 years worth of television episodes, films, books, comics and audio plays describing exactly who Doctor Who is.  That is not evidence that he actually exists.

Perhaps prophecies being fulfilled time after time?

Assuming you're talking about Biblical prophecy, this is mostly untrue, and wholly misleading, and ignores the prophecies which were and remain unfulfilled.  Perhaps you could be more specific?

The dead coming back to life?

There is no empirical evidence for this.

Take your pick: all these things happened.

This is an assertion, not evidence.

The Book of Mark is a great starting place.

"The Eleventh Hour" is a great starting place.

[MasterofPun]

No. It was not my argument. You said that no evidence exists for God: this is my response. Please don't confuse the issue.

Nope. Physics and chemistry and all observed science have not ever created life on their own. Any other ideas?
Good grief you missed the entire point of the article  ! I was hoping you would realize that the very first cells had to come into existence from somewhere - and merely arranging random bits of RNA and (maybe) simple organelles does not create life. This merely proves that you get what you want out of the article - not what's there. Reader's intent is strong.

Going further into definitions of life and viruses is not going to aid this argument. If you think it does, please provide a thought and some evidence for it. Even viruses do not reproduce without other forms of life, so they are not useful for your cause. Answering your question about the definition of life will not move this forward on its own: so please explain as you wish without asking me to split hairs.

You are "straining the gnat and swallowing the camel". I said "chicken and the egg" as an example and you completely and totally dodged the question. I'll ask it again. Please answer it. How is it that you have both chicken and egg at the same time - b/c both are needed for the other to exist?
Your example was not useful - as you can can define tall and short as a particular height. Also - speciation (changing from one species to another) has nothing to do with this argument yet. If you'd like to try to defend that large hole in Darwinian evolution, feel free to try your best.

1st - you just admitted that your theory has holes. That's more than most people are willing to admit and for that I congratulate you.
I am not proposing a "God of the gaps". I am proposing a "God of the Universe". You can't have the universe without God. No mass, energy, or anything could exist without God. Also, those "gaps" you speak of are not shrinking, but growing larger I'm afraid.

So you want a name behind a theory? That's not even fair logic. I don't need to name an idea or find more people to agree with it. Bandwagon does not produce truth. I am stating that my position is possible: I have done so. If you want to show that it is not possible that is on you. If you want me to go back and review my plan with you, I will oblige.

Would you like to propose some problems with an Earth that God created? That might help me find what particular empirical information you are looking for. I am guessing you are looking for something more than fibonachi numbers occurring in nature.

You have admitted that evolution does not have an explanation of where life came from. The Bible does. That's one point in favor of the Bible's Creation.
You would like supernatural empirical evidence: how much looking have you done? Are you sure you are not overlooking it? Perhaps denying it? I openly cannot show you anything that you would not deny - largely b/c the definition of supernatural is arguable. If you want to pursue this farther, perhaps we should lay down some definitions.
It is not evidence that Doctor Who exists. Good example. It is proof that Dr. Who does NOT exist, as it violates our laws of reality.
I am unsure if the Bible does ever disagree with our laws of reality. The Bible is also pretty fabulous in that it was written by many different people and never contradicts itself - even though they are from multiple centuries apart.

The only prophecies that are unfulfilled are the 2nd Coming of Christ and the Apocalypse (mostly in book of Revelation). These are going to be fulfilled later: they have not been proved false yet. What about the other 2000 that have been fulfilled? (According to Google - I am unsure of that number to say the least).

That statement is an assertion as was meant to be read as an assertion. not evidence.
How is the eleventh hour valid? What good does it do to study our current time? Perhaps I misunderstand you.

[Fippe94]

Eleventh Hour is an episode of Doctor Who. It's a good starting point if you want to watch Doctor Who, in the same sense that you say that the Book of Mark os a good place to start in the Bible.

[ElementalDearWatson]

MasterofPun, could I ask you to please use quote boxes?  It's hard to keep track of which parts of your post are supposed to be responses to which parts of mine.

No. It was not my argument. You said that no evidence exists for God: this is my response. Please don't confuse the issue.

I said that there was no evidence for God after you said there was no evidence for abiogenesis.  I was, very pointedly, using the same argument that you had made.

Nope. Physics and chemistry and all observed science have not ever created life on their own.

That's rather a bold statement.  Particularly coming from someone who earlier in the thread posted an article describing how life could have come about from simple chemical reactions.

Good grief you missed the entire point of the article  ! I was hoping you would realize that the very first cells had to come into existence from somewhere - and merely arranging random bits of RNA and (maybe) simple organelles does not create life. This merely proves that you get what you want out of the article - not what's there. Reader's intent is strong.

The first cells did have to come into existence from somewhere.  The article describes how the scientific consensus is that that "somewhere" was probably what it terms "RNA World".  You're creating another straw man with your use of the word "random".

But, really, if you believe that the article does say that cells spontaneously formed out of nothing, then please quote the relevant part.

Going further into definitions of life and viruses is not going to aid this argument.

It's not going to aid your argument, no.  That's because your argument relies on there being a hard delineation between life and not-life, whereas the truth is that no such hard delineation exists.

You are "straining the gnat and swallowing the camel". I said "chicken and the egg" as an example and you completely and totally dodged the question. I'll ask it again. Please answer it. How is it that you have both chicken and egg at the same time - b/c both are needed for the other to exist?

I didn't dodge anything.  I gave a full and frank answer as to why the answer to the question is "egg".  You can indeed have an egg without a chicken.  I explained exactly why, and on what factors it all depends.

Much of your thinking seems to be based on things having strict categories, clearly delineated from each other.  Reality is more messy.

Your example was not useful - as you can can define tall and short as a particular height.

And you can also define "chicken" and "not-chicken" however you like.

Also - speciation (changing from one species to another) has nothing to do with this argument yet. If you'd like to try to defend that large hole in Darwinian evolution, feel free to try your best.

Speciation has been observed.  Possibly the best and least disputable examples in nature are ring species.  You should look up the Ensatina salamander, or greenish warblers.

1st - you just admitted that your theory has holes. That's more than most people are willing to admit and for that I congratulate you.

What theory has "holes"?  Are you talking about abiogenesis?    Again, I request that you use quote boxes or find some other way of making it clear what you're actually replying to when you reply.

I am not proposing a "God of the gaps". I am proposing a "God of the Universe". You can't have the universe without God. No mass, energy, or anything could exist without God. Also, those "gaps" you speak of are not shrinking, but growing larger I'm afraid.

I don't think you understand what a God of the Gaps is.  A God of the Gaps is a type of argument where someone points to something that science doesn't have a full explanation for and says that the real explanation is God.  The problem with that is that once science does come up with a full explanation that you can no longer say that the explanation is God.  Ergo God gets smaller.

So you want a name behind a theory? That's not even fair logic. I don't need to name an idea or find more people to agree with it. Bandwagon does not produce truth. I am stating that my position is possible: I have done so. If you want to show that it is not possible that is on you. If you want me to go back and review my plan with you, I will oblige.

I have no idea what you're talking about.  Please use quote boxes.

Would you like to propose some problems with an Earth that God created? That might help me find what particular empirical information you are looking for. I am guessing you are looking for something more than fibonachi numbers occurring in nature.

I don't understand what you mean?  Your use of the word "empirical" means that you're talking about my statement that I would only accept empirical evidence for the existence of God, but the rest of these sentences don't seem to relate to that much, if at all. 

You have admitted that evolution does not have an explanation of where life came from.

I have "admitted" no such thing.  Abiogenesis and evolution are two different things.  It's like "admitting" that the theory of Gravitation doesn't have an explanation for what causes lightening.   Of course it doesn't.  They're two different things.

The Bible does. That's one point in favor of the Bible's Creation.

Doctor Who also has an explanation for where life came from.  The trick isn't to have an explanation of where life came from, the trick is to have an explanation of where life came from that is backed up with empirical data.  Those who research abiogenesis aren't there yet, but they have more empirical evidence than the Bible does.

You would like supernatural empirical evidence:

I would like empirical evidence for the existence of God.

It is not evidence that Doctor Who exists.

Just as the Bible is not evidence that God exists.

It is proof that Dr. Who does NOT exist, as it violates our laws of reality.

So does the Bible.

The Bible is also pretty fabulous in that it was written by many different people and never contradicts itself - even though they are from multiple centuries apart.

Doctor Who was written by many different people.  It does contradict itself, but so does the Bible.

The only prophecies that are unfulfilled are the 2nd Coming of Christ and the Apocalypse (mostly in book of Revelation).

Then why, for example, does the city of Tyre still exist?

How is the eleventh hour valid? What good does it do to study our current time? Perhaps I misunderstand you.

It's a good place to start watching Doctor Who.  I mention it because you have yet to provide any evidence that the Bible is more credible as a source of information.

[OldTrees]

I am sorry that you missed the point: the article points out how the current biology theory is that life arises from simple structures combining and then forming more complex structures which randomly combined into more complex organelles into cells. But at one point in there, life had to spring from the organelles. Even if we could assemble all of a cell's organelles within a membrane, the cell would need so many more components before it would actually even be a living cell! But away from that thought, at one point life had to suddenly come from non-living material. There's no evidence that phenomenon has ever occurred or ever will occur.

Why do you presume organelles are necessary for life?

The definition of life is controversial. The current definition[according to whom?] is that organisms maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, and reproduce.

The a generic RNA cell fulfills all but the ability to reproduce (I don't know an RNA only mechanism for splitting the cell but one might exist) and we know that with RNA + Proteins you have a cell that can satisfy all the conditions in the definition I quoted. Life is an emergent property of arrangements of non living matter.

Sir, I have been incredibly rational thus far. Do not fret - my patience endures by the grace of God.

I feel like I must have unintentionally offended you. I hope it was not my honest remark that since my statements will be less persuasive without the necessary background, it is less likely to convince you at this time assuming you are rational (because the chance for a rational person to be convinced is dependent on how persuasive the statements they hear are).

1. Nice dodge of my question. Where did mass come from? Energy? Space? Time? What is the origin of these things? How did they come to be?
2. Valid, but how do you define reality? (This is getting off topic btw)
So correct me if I'm wrong with 4c, you're saying that mitochondria used to be its own species? A mitochondria cannot survive on its own. It needs organization and a membrane, even I know that. Do I misunderstand you?
Also, "Common enough"? What does that mean? I sincerely doubt that organelles that are so epicly precise and narrow (as you know as a biology major) could randomly form from tiny pieces. How do you get the technology that cells wield by random chance when we cannot construct such technology's equal with human intelligence? Even with human intelligence, we cannot even brush the surface of some cell's efficiency. And that happened by accident?
Additionally, how did life apparently exist without any DNA? Do we have any proof that life exists without DNA or its formative parts?

1. That was not a dodge. I am only addressing abiogenesis (and only at your request, the initial comment of this subthread was towards someone else).
2. I do not define reality, reality is itself. The only parts of the definition that were relevant to my statement are that reality is only 1 way at a time and the colloquial understanding that reality contains everything that is real.
4c. Yes it did. The ancient Mitochondria was absorbed by another single celled organism, the resulting symbiotic relationship had the side effect of mitochondria losing its ability to survive on its own.
5. What "Common enough" meant/means: You know that all plants have vacuoles. This implies that vacuoles originated early on (around or earlier than the animal - plant split). This is similar to why we suspect ribosomal proteins originated very early in the history of life. However while ribosomal proteins are universal, vacuoles are not so I could not say "Universal" and had to use the similar but accurate language "Common enough".
6. Why would you think I, as a biology major, would consider modern organelles to be irreducibly complex? Merely examining the genetic differences in the organelle proteins across species indicates that the organelles have changed over time.
7. We have had fewer man hours attempting tasks than the biosphere has had millions of cell years. As long as incremental improvement can be passed down (like heritable traits from cell to cell or technology from human to human) it should not surprise you if you find cases where the younger endeavor is outclassed by the elder.

[Blacksmith]

That was a long, long conversation. This is interesting. Following.